BREAKING NEWS! CANTON SAFETY DIRECTOR THOMAS REAM RESIGNS ACCORDING TO A WELL-PLACED SCPR SOURCE.

 UPDATE:  3:50 PM

 

(NOTE:  The SCPR's scoop has been confirmed by staff report filed minutes ago by the Canton local newspaper)

The SCPR has learned that Canton Safety Director Thomas Ream and Mayor William J. Healy, II have been searching for a "face saving way" (for benefit of Healy, of course) to announce the safety director's resignation for about a week.

The beginning of the end had to be case for Canton Safety Director Tom Ream when in the latter part of February he collaborated with Mayor William J. Healy, II to change the job description for the director of the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab (CSCCL) so that Ream personal and political friend and former Stark County chief deputy Rick Perez could be appointed as director.

Healy is politically close to Perez's brother Kim who is running for Canton auditor in the May Democratic primary.  The mayor has told the SCPR that he endorses Perez in his candidacy which suggests to The Report that Healy was likely in full accord with Ream's desire to appoint Rick Perez as the Canton-Stark County Crime Lab director.

About a week after the appointment and a public hue and cry and a confrontation between Stark County Council of Governments (SCOG) Executive Committee chairman Thomas Bernabei (also president of the Stark County Board of Commissioners) in early March, Mayor Healy obtained Perez's resignation and in the process - in the opinion of the SCPR - threw Director Ream under the bus.

One had to wonder how a professional law enforcement man like Ream could stay on under Healy having been abandoned on a decision that Healy had to be in on up to his ears.

In resigning, Ream has done what a person of professional pride would do under similar circumstances.

This Ream resignation should be a "wake up call" to Healy.

He could be faced with a nearly impossible task of finding a replacement for Ream.

Who among Stark County's law enforcement professionals would want to work for Mayor Healy given his treatment of former safety director Tom Nesbitt and now Ream?

Healy needs to politically mature in a hurry.

The SCPR believes he lost his opportunity to be an effective mayor of Canton in his firing of Tom Bernabei as service director and chief of staff in the first year of his first administration.

Obviously, he did not learn his lesson then.

Not much longer after the Bernabei firing, he made life so uncomfortable for Tom Nesbitt as safety director (whom he brought in from a high law enforcement position in Nebraska) that Nesbitt elected to move on.

Apparently, Healy thinks he can be an effective mayor primarily through public relations initiatives.

But he wrong on that count.

The folks who are suffering under his unenlightened leadership methods are the people of Canton. 

How long are they going to put up with his shenanigans?

CAN DEAN MCKIM SURVIVE AS CANTON POLICE CHIEF IN LIGHT OF OFFICER DANIEL HARLESS JUNE 11TH VIDEOTAPED INCIDENT? HOW ABOUT SAFETY DIRECTOR THOMAS REAM?

Pictured above is Canton Chief of Police as he appeared before the media on June 23, 2007 (the day that Canton Police Officer Bobby Cutts, Jr. was arrested for two counts of murder) to reassure the Canton/Stark County public that the Canton Police Department (CPD)  would deal with one of its own in the light of the facts that evolved in the investigation of the allegation against Cutts.

In the Cutts case, McKimm, of course, responded immediately.  The Cutts case was easy for the chief to deal with.  Cutts was in jail and he was convicted on February 15, 2008 and sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for parole for 57 years. but with an officer who was incarcerated.

But should Cutts have been a Canton policeman in the first place?

According to a report by Edd Pritchard of The Repository dated June 19, 2007, Sheriff, FBI agents search Cutts' home:

In 1998, before he joined the Canton Police Department, Cutts was found guilty of aggravated criminal trespass for breaking into [Nikki] Giavasis' [the mother of his child] apartment in Jackson Township. He pleaded no contest, was found guilty and placed on three years probation. He was hired to the Canton force in 2000.

...

In February 2003, Cutts was fired from the police department after an investigation into how his cousin ended up with Cutts' service weapon. Cutts claimed the weapon was stolen. Police administrators believed Cutts gave the weapon to his cousin. But an arbitrator determined the incident wasn't a good enough reason to dismiss Cutts and he was reinstated.

On June 8, 2011 another case of "dealing with one of our own" for McKimm to deal with, in terms of allegations of a Canton policeman wrong doing, was birthed.

For readers who have not seen the video, CLICK HERE for the link.

This time McKimm has a much more difficult task on his hand.

And the question is not so much how Harless will be dealt with, but how long McKimm and his boss Safety Director Thomas Ream have known about the incident before placing the officer on administrative leave sometime in June.

A paramount question that McKimm and Ream have to answer is why they did not get out in front on this matter?

They needed to bring it to the public's attention before it hit the media and present a convincing case to the public that the attitude demonstrated in the video is atypical because the Canton Police Department has mechanisms in place to filter out officers who have attitude issues before incidents like what occurred on June 8th transpire.

If a plausible explanation is not forthcoming, then it is incumbent on Mayor Healy to step in and ensure to the public's satisfaction that remedial policies and procedures are put in place and perhaps including disciplinary action against McKimm and Ream.

The SCPR has talked with a prominent Stark County police official who shared the following observations/comments:

• questions whether or not McKimm historically has effectively handled allegations of Canton police misconduct.
• questions the quality of training of police officers in Canton.  
• the SCPR's source was incredulous that the other officer on the scene did not intervene to settle Harless down.
• could not believe that the car was being searched without taking everybody out of it first.
• the officer's refusal to listen to the subject about having a permit to carrying the gun.
• Canton needs to significantly improve the quality of background investigations, internal affairs investigations and disciplinary processes.
• worried that the culture of the CPD is such that it encourages police wrongdoing,
• a key to watch, the source says, is the union's reaction.  Does it circle the wagons or does it stand up and distance the working officers of the department from what the video shows.

• believes that McKimm in the sense that he appears to have failed to have systematic and escalating processes in place to prevent what happened on June 8th should be accountable in terms of "the buck stops here."  The source would be surprised to learn that there were no other incidents involving Harless.  It all goes back - The Report's source says - to McKimm and what he believes to have been ineffective police corp control and that McKimm bears responsibility for the development of what appears to be a culture of tolerance if not encouragement of cop on the beat arrogance.

 In light of the police source's criticism of the Canton police administration, it may be a good idea for Cantonians to attend the Canton Police Academy.  While there, they may want to inquire into background check procedures, the operation of internal affairs and the CPD disciplinary processes.

Another source in a position to know tells the SCPR that McKimm rules the department in a military fashion, but does not have the respect of the Canton police force.  McKimm, the source says, is a technocrat who does not get out and around his troops connecting with them on a day-to-day basis and therefore not in a position to have the pulse of the department within his grasp.

If the source is correct in assessing McKimm, it appears that one side of McKimm does take with some of the CPD officers is a dictatorial manner that seems to be more appropriate in a military context than in a city police department where the clientele is citizen based and not focused on dealing with enemies.

RICK PEREZ UNELECTABLE? CANTON SAFETY DIRECTOR TOM REAM TO RUN FOR SHERIFF, BUT WITH IDEA THAT PEREZ WILL BE "ACTUAL" SHERIFF?

The Stark County Political Report has learned that it appears that the Stark County Democratic Party hierarchy has concluded (rightly so, in the view of The Report) that Stark County Sheriff Chief Deputy Rick Perez cannot be elected in his own right as county sheriff.

Taking a cue from the defeat of Kim Perez as county auditor (Kim is Rick's brother), the bigs of the organized Stark Dems have hatched up a plan to have Canton Safety Director Tom Ream as sort of a Madison Avenue-esque sheriff run, but once elected, to turn the actual sheriffing over to Perez.

Had Stark's countywide elected Democrats not fallen on hard times with the troubles of former Stark County Treasurer Gary Zeigler (which The Report believes cost the Dems the auditor's and treasurer's office), the plan is believed to have been that current Sheriff Tim Swanson would resign short of filling out his full term and that the organized Democrats would appoint Perez his successor.  The timing was to be that Perez would not have to run in November, 2010 and would have two years before having to stand for election in November, 2012.

Before Swanson and his pals at the Stark County Democratic headquarters realized that Perez was unelectable, he told a Signature group of Leadership Stark County candidates (which included Perez) that Perez would be Stark County's next sheriff.

Well, all that is now changed.

The SCPR believes that "the Ream plan" probably will not work.

The Report believes that the Dems are on the brink of losing at least two more countywide offices in 2012:  the sheriff's office and the prosecutor's office.

Stark County Republican officials are urging Larry Dordea (Hartville Police Chief, Alliance City Councilman and former police chief of Alliance) to run for sheriff a second time.  He lost to Swanson in 2008.

Moreover, the same officials are putting pressure on Stark County civic activist and attorney Craig T. Conley to run against Prosecutor John Ferrero next year.  Ferrero and Conley have had their run-ins.

Do not expect an formal announcement from Safety Director Ream about running for sheriff until it is known whether or not his current boss Canton Mayor William J. Healy, II will be continuing on as mayor.  Healy faces a challenge from long time Canton Councilman Bill Smuckler (a Democrat like Healy) in the Democratic primary in early May.  If Healy survives the primary, then he faces formidable Republican opposition in November.

Ream will not want, one would think, to detract from or damage the Healy candidacy.

But once Healy's fate is determined, look for Ream to throw his hat into the ring to succeed - sort of - Sheriff Timothy A. Swanson.